Call centers generally function to assist people seeking a product or a service. Calls to a call center may come from the traditional telephone network (e.g., the POTS) through the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or via voice over IP (i.e., VOIP). Calls received from the POTS can be translated to VOIP calls at a media gateway. VOIP calls may also be referred to as IP calls. IP calls directed to a particular telephone number can generally bypass a media gateway and be forwarded directly to a soft switch or an automatic call director. An automatic call director generally functions to direct calls to different resources within the call center (e.g., an interactive voice response system, an agent, etc.).
A call center generally includes telephony infrastructure, computing infrastructure, and access to agents for handling calls. The computing infrastructure may include clusters of computing devices and applications running on the computing devices to perform various call center functions. For instance, the functions of an automatic call director may be implemented in an application running on a computing device accessible to the call center.
Each cluster of computing devices may be independent of other clusters. Alternatively, multiple clusters of computing devices may be connected to each other in a distributed call-routing system.
As call volume increases, it is desirable for a call center to have access to a distributed call-routing system having efficient load sharing capabilities.